Jesus Christ: Our Daily Reality

I've been thinking alot about being a Christian these days. You know, what it really means. I found a quote I couldn't quite believe from T.S. Elliot:

"We must not cease from exploration. And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time."

I almost don't get that, and yet it rings so true! How could something so foreign to this skin and bone be "home" in my experience? How is it that when I turn to the Lord, it's like I'm really breathing for the first time? I know I have never been without Him, but the willful attention makes such a difference. I guess He responds out of His longing for us to do just that.

There's a song on the new U2 album and a line of it goes: "I'm alive, I'm being born at this time. I'm at the door of the place I started out from, and I walk back inside. All because of You, all because of You I AM." I have been listening to this album for a couple of weeks now, and I just heard that for the first time today. Sometimes it seems that creation echos a theme, and it's just waiting until the idea is discovered and then it showers the truth of it all around you!

That is who He is. Once He is discovered, then it is all encompassing, overflowingly evident that He is all there is! It's like going to see the ocean for the first time. You knew it was there, you never doubted for a minute, and then when you were first presented with the real thing, you were dazzled by the immense truth of it. Everything assaulting the eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin were declaring "Ocean" and there was no escape. So you plunge in it's depths, taste the salt, dig your toes in the sand, feel the balmy air in your hair, the sand beneath your feet, and for the rest of your life, even if you never have that experience again, you will not forget the reality of it.

As time goes on, and visits become less frequent, the clarity of it darkens, and though you could spend the rest of your life with only that one encounter, it will become more dreamlike, and it will be harder to remember the feeling of the sun warming your back. Your life is busy, and you don't have time to even think about it, so you don't really miss it all that much.

But some people, having seen it once, cannot be without it, so they pack up and move there. And in every moment, the sea is there, calling, calling, calling. They have chosen to know this sea in it's every mood, at different times of the day, during different weather, and find there something new to discover in every moment.

The Lord is present and available. He is the reality you can not only visit, but in which you may live. Why do without? Why be Emily Dickinson, who wrote: "I never saw the moor, I never saw the sea, but know I how the heather looks and what a wave must be. I never spoke with God or visited in Heaven, but I am certain of the spot as if the chart were given." Why live with a dream-like God, when you can have morning, noon and night fellowship with the One who loves you so totally?

Just call His name, and then enjoy the results.